A month slipped by in the strange cocoon of the space-time array — though to Vergil, it might as well have been a blink or an eternity.
He didn't know how many hours or days had passed outside.
And for the first time in what felt like forever, he realized he didn't care.
Life here wasn't a battlefield.
It wasn't clawing for survival against overwhelming odds.
It wasn't the desperation to seize power before someone stronger crushed him underfoot.
It was… peaceful.
A peace he hadn't felt since those fleeting days with Elvira — and even those, compared to this, felt like a candle flickering against a roaring hearth.
Here, days bled into each other in a slow, steady rhythm.
---
Luminare — his "mother," though the word still felt jagged in his mind — had been teaching him the world's language.
At first, he refused, shrugging it off with bitter, almost teenage defiance.
"What use do I have for a language I'll never use?" he'd scoffed.
She had flicked him sharply on the forehead, making him wince and curse under his breath.
> "Literature carries memory," Luminare had said with a small smile.
"And memory carries the soul. If you throw that away, who will remember we were here… for the people who come after?"
Grudgingly, Vergil agreed.
Now, he could almost write simple sentences — even if he still mangled the grammar badly enough to make Luminare shake her head in mock horror.
---
The blood baby that had once replaced his heart — the thing he thought would destroy him — had stabilized.
It had created a perfect copy of his heart, and from time to time, it emerged from his chest, peering at the world with curious, primal instinct.
Its abilities were… terrifyingly useful.
It could sense killing intent in a radius of nearly fifty miles — a living radar for danger. And more than that, it could regenerate his organs using its own nutrients and a strange, dark well of demonic energy it carried inside.
Vergil had grown used to feeling it stir within him. Like breathing — unnatural, yet now part of him.
---
Twenty days ago.
The fire crackled softly, fed by dried moss and brittle fungus.
Luminare sat across from him, legs folded gracefully beneath her. The flames painted her sharp features in gold and shadow, her ocean-blue eyes gleaming with a depth that made Vergil feel small.
"Do you know why you're still alive?" she asked suddenly, voice soft but heavy with meaning.
Vergil, sprawled lazily on the ground, tilted his head and smirked.
"No idea. Luck? Bad karma?"
He expected a joke. A flick to the head. Some casual insult.
Instead, she leaned forward, gaze sharp as a spear.
"No," she said. "You're alive because your blood baby carries half your soul."
She let the words hang in the smoky air.
"Even if your body falls, as long as the blood baby lives — and your corpse is intact enough — it can rebuild you."
Vergil blinked slowly. Processing.
"…Then what about my arm?" he asked automatically, glancing down at the empty sleeve where his left arm used to be.
Luminare's expression softened, bittersweet.
"You're fixating again, Vergil. Let it go."
She prodded the fire with a stick, sparks swirling upward.
"When the blood baby awakened, it locked your current form into what it considers your true state. The missing arm… the scars… the wounds you carried at that moment — those are now part of your origin. Your beginning. It cannot rewrite history."
Vergil fell silent, the truth pressing heavy against his ribs.
Then, without warning, she reached out and pulled his head into her lap. He stiffened — but she only ran her fingers gently through his hair, smoothing unruly strands.
Something twisted sharply in his chest.
A thousand fragments flashed through his mind — a mother's hand, a friend's laugh, a dream never fulfilled.
"It's alright," Luminare murmured, voice softer than the fire's crackle.
"You think if you had your arm again, you'd be whole. That you could run from this… from me… from yourself."
Vergil opened his mouth to argue — but nothing came out.
"You can chase your past all you like," she said. "But you'll only find shadows. What you lost… can never be reclaimed exactly as it was."
Then, a teasing glint entered her eyes.
"Besides… are you trying to escape me, Vergil?"
She leaned closer, whispering conspiratorially:
"Because if you are, you're doing a terrible job."
For the first time in weeks, Vergil laughed — raw and unguarded.
Luminare laughed with him, and for a moment, the cavern walls didn't feel so cold.
---
Now.
Vergil stood alone at the place where he had first fallen — where the spike had pierced him, leaving him bleeding and broken.
The spike still jutted from the ground, untouched, immaculate.
Time itself seemed to refuse its decay — preserving his near-death like a cruel monument.
He sat heavily beside it, tilting his face toward the invisible ceiling.
No sunlight.
No stars.
Nothing but darkness above.
Regret stirred in him.
Regret — for what could never be fixed.
Sadness — for the friends he never made, the life he could only dream of.
Longing — for the academy he once hoped to attend. For the strength he had sworn to earn. For the future he had believed in.
The thoughts gnawed at him like cold wind through broken doors.
But after a long minute, a stubborn smile tugged at his lips.
"I should accept reality," he whispered.
Pushing himself up with his remaining arm, he turned his back on the spike — and walked.
Back toward the firelight.
Back toward the home he had, for now.
Back toward "mother."
---
Vergil hummed softly as he walked the worn stone path — a new habit.
He liked the way the vibrations traveled through his throat, echoing faintly through the cavern.
Simple. Quiet. His.
'Maybe I should become a singer,' he thought with a faint smirk.
"Right, blood baby?"
A stirring beneath his ribs answered him.
With a soft, wet sound, the blood baby emerged, hovering before him like a small crimson spirit.
Its body was larger now, pulsing with gentle red light.
"Gu?" it chirped, tilting its head.
Vergil crouched to meet its gaze.
"I'm thinking of changing careers," he said seriously. "No more fighting. Just me and my only fan. You'd be my number one, right?"
The blood baby flailed its tiny arms.
"Guuu!" it squeaked, confused but eager.
Vergil chuckled quietly.
"You don't even know what I'm talking about, do you?"
The blood baby floated closer, pressing its soft forehead to his. It hummed faintly — mimicking him.
"That's right," Vergil murmured, eyes closing briefly.
"Just hum with me. Forget the rest."
They stayed like that for a while — boy and creature, bound by blood, fate, and something harder to name.
Eventually, the blood baby yawned, squeaking softly before sinking back into his chest to sleep.
---
When Vergil stepped into the small structure clinging to the cavern wall, he called out:
"I'm home… 'Mother.'"
Luminare lay on the fur-strewn bed, silver hair spread across the pillow, breathing slow and steady. A few handmade torches lit the space, and her spear rested in the corner.
For a moment, he simply watched her.
Peaceful. Untouchable.
She was like him — a sad person with deep scars — but unlike him, she seemed satisfied with the life she had now.
A sharp voice cut through the quiet.
> "Devil-spawn," the spear sneered.
Vergil didn't answer.
The spear's venom had long lost its sting.
He slumped against the far wall, exhaustion pressing on him — not from battle, but from something heavier.
> "Nobody wants you here. Even if master welcomes you, I certainly will not."
Vergil closed his eyes.
He thought of the blood baby humming with him.
Of Luminare trusting him enough to sleep while he was gone.
"Maybe," he whispered.
The spear fell silent, confused.
Vergil pulled a thin blanket over himself, the cavern's cold air settling in.
Above, there were no stars. No moon. Only stone, darkness, and the hum of old magic.
Still, he found himself humming again — not for the spear, not for Luminare, not even for himself.
Just because.
And eventually, despite the spear's muttered curses, he drifted into sleep.
-------
[Relationship with Luminare has increased to Rank 3]